Women’s March 4 Justice as it happened: Brittany Higgins addresses Parliament House crowd as thousands of women rally across Australia for gender equality - The Sydney Morning Herald

Speaker upon speaker stood on stages across the nation during more than 40 Women’s March 4 Justice rallies and described the atrocities they had been subjected to as women. Here’s a snapshot of what they said:

Canberra

Brittany Higgins, former political staffer and the victim of an alleged rape: “I watched as the Prime Minister of Australia publicly apologised to me through the media, while privately the media team actively undermined and discredited my loved ones. I tuned into Question Time to see my former bosses – people that I had dedicated my life to – downplay my lived experience.”

“If they aren’t committed to addressing these issues in their own offices, what confidence can the women of Australia have that they will be proactive in addressing this issue in the broader community?”

“This isn’t a political problem. This is a human problem. We’ve all learned over the past few weeks just how common gendered violence is in this country. It’s time our leaders on both sides of politics stop avoiding the public and side-stepping accountability. It’s time we actually address the problem.”

Michele O’Neil, ACTU president: “We are here today for girls under covers listening to approaching footsteps. For every woman in a bar, street, in an office who feels that look, who feels that threat. We say to men in this place who are drunk on power, ‘Don’t think you will get away with it.’ ... Change is coming, it’s coming like a tsunami.”

Saxon Mullins, co-director of advocacy at Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy: “One in five women have experienced sexual violence. Men, where do you think these perpetrators are hiding? They are your friends. They are your co-workers. They are your football mates, and they are your friends from school.”

Korra Koperu says she is scared to walk anywhere alone. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

Melbourne

Julia Banks, former Liberal MP: “This is one of the most defining moments for Australian women because it’s driven by the most powerful force that makes up 51 per cent of our population: women.”

Huong Truong, former Victorian Greens MP: “Vote ’em out. Replace them and do not flinch. Double down. Stand witness. Let’s give them hell.”

Wil Stracke, assistant secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council: “We are angry. And we are hurting. It’s not just that we are not safe. It’s not just that we are not respected. We are still not equal ... we still don’t have equal pay. We are right to be angry.”

Korra Koperu, 19, trans activist: “I am not just scared to walk home at night. I am scared to walk anywhere.”

Grace Tame at the Women’s March 4 Justice rally in Hobart. Credit:Twitter

Hobart

Grace Tame, Australian of the Year: “Ten years next month, actually, that I made a choice to stand up against a man who repeatedly raped me and used to boast to me about other girls that he had raped before he raped me. I’m not going to name him – he doesn’t deserve any air time. But I was afraid of doing something until a different kind of fear usurped that fear, and that was the fear of doing nothing. The fear of doing nothing should outweigh your fear of doing something.”

“You know, as is often the case when an issue that has been shrouded in darkness for such a long time is suddenly thrust into the light, there’s widespread shock and disbelief over how something so evil could happen, and not just happen, but happen so ubiquitously. And the answer is plain and simple – silence. Evil thrives in silence. Behaviour unspoken, behaviour ignored, is behaviour endorsed.”

Sydney

Dhanya Mani, former NSW Liberal staffer: “I’m so angry as well standing in front of this building because it isn’t just about Scott Morrison, it isn’t just about men, it is about every person in a parliamentary building who stood by and did nothing.”

Matt Kean, NSW Environment Minister: “This is not a Liberal issue or a Labor issue – it’s all of our issues. And this is about saying no to violence against women and saying yes to equality across our community, and that’s something that we should all be a part of.”

Debbie Fletcher addresses the crowd at King George Square. Credit:Jocelyn Garcia

Brisbane

Debbie Fletcher, Kalkadoon woman and social justice advocate: “I’m a grandmother, I am a mother, I am a sister and an auntie and a daughter ... I’ve been a fighter all my life, I make no apologies for that. I will continue to raise my voice while women in Australia continue to be abused, raped and murdered.”

Read more here.

Published On: Mon, 15 Mar 2021 06:59:28 GMT